Makan-makan and catch-up outings

June has been a fun month as we had three different visits from friends. It's really nice seeing familiar faces here. The irony of it, of all places, we managed to catch up here. *smiley*

My first trip to The Sweet Dynasty was with Ren En and Noreen. It was also my debut outing to the much publicised Tsim Tsa Tsui. More weird (and rude) people can be spotted there (and also on the way there, on the mtr).

The Sweet Dynasty is popular for their taufoofah, which came in a wooden bucket (good for keeping warm). Very smooth taufoofah - nice. But I still prefer our local gula melaka with ginger syrup. Annabel also enjoyed her share.

(clockwise from top left): Some sort of pork noodles, chee cheong fun (the way i like it), veggie wanton, and a pork dish.

Our second outing was with Cynthia. We brought her to Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop, and later dessert at Honeymoon Desserts, both at IFC Mall.

(clockwise from left): Fried prawn dumplings with sweet sour sauce (no big deal. i still prefer the one behind the old federal/rex cinema), fish congee (this is really nice and smooth - yummy!), chee cheong fun wrapped over yew char kueh (not bad - something different), and fried kueh teow with beef (yum-yum).

(clockwise from top left): Walnut soup & almond tea (mine), mango with taufoofah (cyn's), and mango & grass jelly in vanilla sauce (hubby's). Over here, one cannot go wrong with any mango desserts!

My second visit to The Sweet Dynasty was yesterday, with Elfie and Wei Chieh.

(clockwise from top left): Pork noodles (this is really nice and tasty), chee cheong fun (yet again), veggie wanton (and again), and fried rice (so-so only). Of course we also ordered the taufoofah but didn't take photos of it as it will still look the same as the first time!

Day four in London

On the way to the palace... such lush greenery.

The Buckingham Palace.
We managed to catch glimpses of the changing of the guards. There were loads of people and we couldn't really get a good spot, hence glimpses only. Oh, the photos were taken with (almost) maximum zooming. Anyway I wasn't in the mood to snuggle among the crowd just to get an excellent view. Plus I despise crowds. In the end, the changing of the guards was just that. There are some things that you just got to do when in London, and this is just one of those things.

More photos of the surrounding area.

After that we were off to Leicester Square again, this time to actually get our tickets and to a theatre performance. We took ages to decide on what to watch. Is it gonna be the Phantom (hubby watched already), Wicked (am currently reading the book),... and we finally settled for Les Miserables.

Then lunch at a nearby Burger King.

Of course we had to drop by Harrods for some window and souvenir shopping.

And later we stopped by Oxford Street again for some last minute shopping.

We ended our fourth day with Les Miserables. All that walking and sight-seeing were really tiring. I was snoozing on and off throughout the performance. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a wonderful show. The actors were superb, not to mention the singing and all. It was a great experience, minus the napping.

Dry chicken curry

My third attempt (i think) at MIL's dry chicken curry. I think this one turned out just about right. Will try the one with more gravy next.

On this day, the present

The many cute faces of Annabel. These were taken while lepaking with her just before leaving for dinner.

Mommy and little girl while waiting for the food at Zafferano.

Daddy's tandoori chicken pizza. Annabel had her share too. Mommy was starving and had forgotten to take a snapshot of her chicken tikka beriani.

On this day, two years back...

Happy second anniversary, dear!!!

Braised Mackerel with Tomatoes

The recipe called it as such. But it is actually one version of sweet sour fish. I sticked to the given ingredients (minus spring onions - didn't have lar) although I know very well that I could have added cucumber, pineapple, onions etc. I will surely add more stuff the next round. But I did throw in a teaspoon of chinese cooking wine.. just couldn't resist it!

Dumpling: nyonya style

I managed to satisfy my nyonya chang craving, all thanks to HL (hubby's junior cum my schoolmate cum half peranakan). She said the dumplings were a bit too peppery, but hey, beggars are not choosers right? Plus I love the spiciness of pepper. Hubby was also kind enough to donate half of his to me hihi ^_^

Before the attack.

Yea, still sempat to ambil gambar.

Stewed chicken wings in oyster sauce

Got this recipe from the internet. Modified a little as I didn't have ginger wine. Instead I grated some ginger and added a dash of cooking wine. Turned out rather well. I actually love it! I do wonder if it'll still be as nice if I compensate the wings with other parts of the chicken (minus the skin)?

Bukumuka

Facebook. It seems to be the most natural thing to do nowadays when you go online. Everybody is on it. A surefire way to be in touch with the world - friends that you see day in day out, old schoolmates that you haven't seen or spoken to in 20 years, colleagues that you are not too fond of (or your boss), one Mr A that you met only once, your general practitioner, a friend's toddler... you get the picture.

Facebook. This is the avenue where you advertise your humble self. Your status can be updated every hour to give an insight into what you have been doing, are thinking, or all the super cool stuff that you are planning to do. Through this, I learnt of one friend's exotic culinary adventure, another acquaintance's exotic escapade to never never land, and another's exotic dining experience. Oh, and not to mention those spoilers.

Facebook. You can create photo albums and fill them with memories - graduation, wedding, birthdays, holidays blah blah blah. And then comes the taggings and comments. Photos that are sure to derive loads of comments are of baby/kids and food. People just seem to connect well with these two topics. And the least comments I would say for your holiday shots. Jealous of others' happiness perhaps? Hmmm.. unless it involves them food! Of course those small people that harbour hidden feelings towards you will simply refrain themselves from any comments whatsoever. Let's not get into that.

Facebook. The wall. Where you are able to pen-down sweet nothings to your wife/girlfriend, in the eyes of the whole facebook community, therefore proclaiming yourself as the most romantic guy on facebook. Also, where you are able to send birthday greetings to Buddy A only to get Buddy B mad at you for not wishing him. And where you have conversation with friends for all to see.

Facebook. On etiquette. It is only natural to reply to a person's comments. Ok, an excuse is granted but only if you really really do not like the person, or are lost for words, or suddenly went brain dead. Like when people are talking to you, you will reply. The same applies here. If you answer to the comments, it will definitely encourage the commenter to say more things in the future. Now, you would surely like to have comments splattered all over your facebook, don't you? And it the long run, you would have developed a closer relationship. See, a win-win situation.

Facebook. I am not against it. In fact I love my facebook moments and it can be quite addictive. Ehem.. and I do indulge in the things mentioned above. I am only human. And I can just go on about this topic but let us just leave it for another day.

The Agaricus bisporus and Lentinula edodes

Mixed veggie with broccoli, carrots, green bell pepper and button mushrooms.
Chicken with chestnuts. Followed an online resipe but (self) added the shiitake mushrooms. Hubby didn't like chestnuts so I had to sapu everthing (not complaining :o)!

Chicken, dhall and fish

Chicken with tauchew and ginger.

Dhall with potato and carrots on rice.

Fish curry ala mama bel ^_*

Long live the King!

Today is the Agong's birthday. And it is also the day whereby I attended my first ever open house, Msian style (how ironic that I didn't bother to go to any back home but eager (initially) to grace the one here). It was a formal event with an emcee and an opening speech by the consulate general. It was mentioned in his speech that Msians abroad (everywhere) are celebrating the ruler's birthday today. Of course when celebrations are concerned it always involve the gathering of people and most importantly (local) food. Well, for all I know, back home we celebrate it with a 'yay, it's (just) another public holiday!!!' or in my case previously 'yay, it's another day to be added to my annual leave'!!! Probably when one is far away from home one tends to look forward to every single Msian celebration to get that home-feel.

Ok. Back to the birthday bash. It was buffet style with local delights such as nasi lemak, roti canai, lontong, mee goreng cili and some kuehs. Yay, a taste of home (or so I thought). Hubby did warn though not to harap so much. But I got excited all over again after learning that some were homemade. Eww.. big mistake! The spread actually looked yummy and like how it was supposed to look. A classic case of do not judge a book by its cover. Most did not meet up to my expectations. Maybe I have fussy tastebuds. The dhall was too watery, the mee goreng was a disaster, the sambal udang wasn't spicy enough (probably the hk way), the kuih lapis (or kuih genggang) had a funny syrupy taste (never before tasted one like that), and I couldn't even be bothered with the lontong (how excellent could it have tasted after all that?!). In short, all did not reach my high standard of taste. Not even close. Maybe because I've only left home for a couple of months. Probably these tasted like heaven for those who have been here for ages.

The attendees? All the successful wannabes. Most look like hongkies, bergaya to the max and dressed to the nines (referring to the women)... in a pathetic attempt to impress and show-off to another fellow country(wo)man. One particular girl was carrying an LV (the one with colourful LVs stamped all over a white background), an equally colourful dress (reminded me of emilio pucci but probably not) with a pair of strappy maroon heels. It was all a mis-matched of colours *cringe*. Being in high fashion from top to bottom do not give an automatic immunity from doing a fashion faux pas. Also, most of the people there are in finance. I think practically everybody at our table are working with some banks. This we learnt from their converstions among each other and with the exchange of namecards (of course we were not offered any.. who are we lar??!!!). Sure, not everybody were as obnoxious. There were a few nice ones especially the people at the consulate.

Would I attend another one? Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, why not, I could just do with some amusement!

Lately...

It has been two months plus (and counting) since I've been here. And I've developed a sort of routine. Morning - breakfast - bathe Annabel - cook Annabel's food - cook daddy's (and mommy's) food - hopefully by now Annabel will nap for two hours - then a quick lunch and other misc stuff before she wakes up again - then continue to layan her with mum-mum in between - then dinner and later bathe her and put her in her pjs and hope and pray that she'll sleep early... and when she actually falls asleep, I would start with preparing the next day's food and washing her clothes!!!

So tiring. More so than when I was working. Although I do not have to plan strategies on how to bring in the sales, I now have to crack my head daily as to what to cook! I actually don't know which of the two gives me more headache! I guess it's because my time now is controlled by my lil princess. Taking care of baby + cooking = super tiring!! I have less me-time, and it's either the internet or reading, although I so plan to start on my cross-stitch.. and I still dare not install my HOM!! So far I have only been actively doing the world wide web.

I do miss my working days. Not so much of the work though (obviously!). I miss the freedom to go here and there with my mba7812 (sobs), whenever and wherever. I miss the brunch and tea sessions. I miss the monthly facials. I miss being able to spend! I miss every little things and most of all HOME!

But of course it's not all that bad being here. I get to stay in another country (although not the country of choice but no biggie as it's only one half yrs). We get to live as a family. Annabel gets to know her daddy better, and gets to know her mommy even better (hehe). Being a stay-at-home mom has its advantages - I know what she eats, her habits, etc etc. Oh and now I get to learn to cook, from nil cooking to cooking daily, and hopefully sharpen this skill along the way (but sometimes it can be quite tiring to whip out an out-of-this-world dish as one half of my energy was used to taking care of Bel-Bel!). But things are looking brighter (and I don't just mean the summer) as I am adjusting myself here slowly but surely...

More food!

Fried assam prawns... wanted it to have a darker look... hmmm..

Fried bittergourd indian style. Sedap.
Another view. Nyummmm...

Five-spice chicken and eggs. Easy and nice.